Insurgents dressed in outdated U.S. Army uniforms infiltrated Camp Bastion at night, split into three groups and attacked the flight line, causing the greatest loss of U.S. military aircraft since the Vietnam War.

The Marine widows, Danielle Atwell and Donnella Raible, told U-T San Diego last week they are upset at how long it took to investigate the attack and that no one has been held accountable.

Raible said putting Tongan troops from a small, impoverished Polynesian island in charge of guarding the perimeter of the main base in the region was "irresponsible."

"Whoever made the decision to leave our towers in the hands of someone other than U.S. Marines or British troops should be held accountable," Raible said.

Atwell, now 23, said her husband didn't have his flak jacket and helmet handy when the insurgents struck, so he fought without body armor. "That is not acceptable," she said. Whoever allowed such lax security measures before the attack "should be held responsible," Atwell said.

Many within the Marine Corps are also upset that no one was fired or reprimanded after the Bastion attack. A Marine helicopter pilot who was there moments after Raible was killed told U-T San Diego last week to keep pressing for investigation results.

I "want to see those responsible for the lack of security held accountable," he said.

Responsibility

Gurganus had early warning of the threat against the base and its high-ranking personnel and visitors. Two days after he took command in March 2012, Gurganus and his British deputy were nearly run down by an Afghan interpreter employed at Bastion airfield.

The man stole a truck and sped down the tarmac where Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had just landed in an unmarked plane. Gurganus and the welcome party scattered as the truck crashed into a ditch. The Afghan man died after setting himself on fire.

During a subsequent security assessment months before the Sept. 14 attack, Gurganus requested more personnel to help guard the towers; but the request was denied amid the drawdown and NATO International Security Assistance Force “politics,” said a military official who worked with Gurganus in Afghanistan, defending his management of base security.

In the runup to the attack, plastic dummies were propped in some watchtowers instead of live sentries, while idle troops elsewhere took online courses and trained for recreational runs, a general officer said.

One month before the attack, Gurganus approved a reduction in perimeter patrols outside Leatherneck and Bastion; and on the night of the attack the tower closest to the Taliban point of entry was unmanned, The Washington Post reported in April, citing four unnamed U.S. military officials who were at Camp Leatherneck at the time or were later briefed on the incident.

Despite several inquiries and security reviews by NATO’s ISAF in Afghanistan, no one in charge of securing the base complex was sanctioned.

“I am still here,” Gurganus told U-T San Diego in a phone interview from Afghanistan in February, at the end of his tour in southwestern Afghanistan.